


Command Me to Be Well

by Critter_Cantrip



Series: Dancing with Fire [4]
Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Abuse, Angst, Bad BDSM Etiquette, Implied/Referenced Torture, M/M, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Triggers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-22
Updated: 2018-03-23
Packaged: 2019-04-06 08:47:13
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 5
Words: 4,106
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14053272
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Critter_Cantrip/pseuds/Critter_Cantrip
Summary: After the day is won, after the deed is done, after the healers cure, after flesh burns, the past calls in its own marker. Caleb will do as he must for Mollymauk. Always.





	1. Take Me to Church

It had not been the calmest of seasons for the Mighty Nein. In no particular order they had become tangled in politics in Zadash, destroyed a vengeful Ice Elemental, and suffered an embarrassing series of ambushes camping along busy roads. And then there was their last encounter.

Here, finally, they had arrived in a clean, pleasant inn. A place with rooms enough for everyone to bunk as they pleased. A place, perhaps, to heal.

Caleb clumped through the inn with a bucket of water. His knees ached. His back ached. His head ached.  There was no particular urgency in his steps. A simple, steady, persistence is all that kept him upright through the many trips from the well to the bathing room.

Occasionally, more often at first, one of the others stepped in his way, called out to him, offered to help. Caleb didn’t speak to them. The bone numbing water sometimes slopped on his clothes as he paused and looked them in the eyes. He would then glance in the direction of the bathing room. One by one they left him to his task.

It was a good inn as far as these things go. The bathing chamber would have been a simple service to pay for in the warm seasons. The polished split wood ran up into the rafters and reflected the light of the copper sconces. A tile floor was an unexpected luxury and spoke to the clay industry of the local town. The Inn Keep had unlocked the room under great protest and a greater deal of coin. With the foot of snow outside Caleb understood his reluctance to aid in filling a tub so that ‘a crazy soul can catch their death of cold’.

He stood in the cool space, swaying gently. A chill crept up his legs through the soles of his boots. Caleb shook his head, slapped his face and knelt next to the large copper tub. He placed a piece of coal beneath it and pulled on the last of his reserves.

“Die Hiezung,” he muttered and exhaled a soft, warm breath on the coal. “Be a friend, fire.”

A warm, orange glow emerged from the coal although it did not burn. Caleb smiled. He rested his head on the cool tile before it began to warm. Eventually he levered himself off the floor with a loud groan and regained his feet.

Mollymauk sat on a stool in the wash room wrapped in Caleb’s coat. He’d refused to take it off for the last three days. Caleb’s books had been sequestered to Jester’s vibrant pink satchel. Normally such a circumstance would have left Caleb anxiety ridden. Caleb crouched in front of Molly, his books far from his thoughts.

“Hey,” Caleb said with a soft voice. 

Molly looked forward. Blinked. Swallowed once.

“Mein Schatz,” Caleb said with tender affection, a gentle grip on Molly’s hands. “My treasure. Come back to me now. Ja?”

The room warmed, an almost imperceptible relief from the cold that grew into gradual comfort. 

“Here,” Caleb said. His hand rested gently against Molly’s face. “Be here, with me.”

The wooden door to the bathing room opened behind Caleb. Caleb stroked Molly’s face once more and brushed his lips over Molly’s forehead before he turned to see who had intruded. 

Well. He hadn’t expected Yasha. 

The fighter looked worn down. A sharp blade that still held an edge but was honed a bit too thin. They all shared that of late.  

 “How is he?” Yasha said as she closed the door. 

Caleb looked down at his hands before speaking. “He’s whole.  So they tell me. It’s not an illness. Not a disease. Not a curse. Not a plague. His soul is there.” His soul, but what of his spark. His fire? Where was Molly?

“I’m not great at this, so I’ll say what I need to say and I’ll leave you alone,” Yasha said as she leaned against the door frame. 

Caleb jumped a little as Yasha coughed and resettled herself against the wall. He glanced up. Was she actually nervous?

“You’ve been kind. You’ve been sweet. We’ve all damn well coddled him.” Yasha sighed and flipped her hair to her other shoulder. “I’ve known him longer. Longest. Maybe not as,” she paused, “intimately, but still.”

Caleb felt a lurch in his stomach, his throat, his heart. He thought it might be a painful thing called hope. “If there is some advice you want to offer, please, spit it out before you choke on it further,” Caleb said. 

Yasha huffed and offered a wan smile. “Offer him something familiar. Something that binds him to you.” She half turned and opened the door. “You’re someone else to him than a gentle lover, Caleb.” She left. The door closed with a soft thud.

Someone else. Something else, more like. They had burned together, Mollymauk and his demon. Not as often as either might have preferred. Enough though, to keep Caleb grounded in the here and now, to give Caleb a sense of something that had puzzled him for the first several weeks.

Happiness. 

Caleb had done a great deal more than trudge through snow for happiness.

He had tracked Molly down, hadn’t he? Frumpkin was still in the form of a lanky silver fox. Caleb was too exhausted in the days after to even consider the spell to restore his dear familiar’s usual form. 

If he was tender, if he was kind, if he cradled Molly’s head in his lap and wept when he found him, it was only because Molly had let some of his soul burn instead of Caleb’s to feed the demon. Molly made it possible for Caleb to smile, to laugh, to offer a wry joke.

His care for Molly also made it possible for Caleb to hurt in ways he had never imagined. And he in turn had hurt those who had done this, burned—

A ragged breath. Another. “Time for that later,” Caleb said as he unclenched his hands.

“Time for that later,” Mollymauk said in a flat monotone.

Caleb nearly tripped himself as he turned to look at Molly. It was the first time Molly had spoken more than ‘yes’, or ‘no’ in three days.

“Molly?” Caleb’s voice cracked. 

Mollymauk didn’t meet Caleb’s gaze. Instead he stared into the field of his mind’s eye as he had since he had been found. 

Caleb slammed his fists into the tile, embracing the shock of pain that flooded his senses. “Damn you, come back to me!” he shouted. 

Molly flinched.

Caleb fought down his twisting gut and focused on the relevant details. Molly had spoken. Molly had flinched.

He could work with that. He swallowed back bitter bile and focused on the pain in his bruised knuckles. He and his demon could work with that.


	2. In The Madness and Soil of That Sad Earthly Scene

The demon rose inside.  Murmured and flickered with ideas. Caleb weighed them. Considered. Chose. 

Caleb rose fluidly to his feet and shrugged out of his simple brown cloak. Flashes of garish color pooled on the floor and caught his eye as the strips of Molly’s old jacket revealed themselves as the lining. A fond memory in any other time. His lover, his fire dancer, his friend, stitching the tatters into the cloak and presenting it to Caleb. “Keep some part of me with you always. Maybe some fashion will rub off on you.” 

It was nearly enough to snuff out the demon. Caleb’s hands shook as he picked up the cloak and hung it with great care on one of the copper hooks that lined a wall of the bathing room. His hand caressed the particolored lining before he finished disrobing. 

The room radiated with warmth. It was wondrous after days pushing through rough terrain and rougher weather. Caleb let a hand brush the surface of the water in the tub. Steam barely curled from its surface. 

“Get undressed.” Caleb said. He didn’t turn to look at Molly. A few moments passed as Caleb rummaged through a shelf and brought over a scrub brush, a tin of scented salts, a sea sponge, and a bit of soap that smelled of oil and herb. The surface of the water was still. Caleb glimpsed himself  – sallow, haggard, exhausted. 

He broke the reflection with a splash. 

There was no sound from behind him. Caleb expected this displeasure. Mollymauk had a knack for inspiring Caleb’s ire.  

Caleb turned and saw that Molly was clinging to the edge of Caleb’s coat, huddled in it, his knuckles white. It took the breath out of him in a ragged exhalation. This, too, he set aside, tucked away in some nook of his mind as a future nightmare. 

“Undress or I will burn that rag off you where you sit.” The demon’s voice. Firm. Confident. Commanding. 

Caleb waited. He waited far longer than he normally would. A shoulder flinched under the coat. Fingers flexed in Molly’s hands. 

In painful, slow measures Molly let go of the coat. It slid to the floor. They had dressed Molly after the healing. He had still been unconscious. New trousers; plain and dull, the kind you could find at any town market. A simple flax shirt. Socks. Clean things.  Whole things.  Unstained by the work of the trophy hunters who had abducted Molly. 

Caleb teetered on the edge of giving into rage or despair. He fed the demon his rage.

“ _All_ of it.  Now.”

A trembling wreck of the man Caleb loved stripped in front of him. Tender, fresh skin covered Molly’s wrists, ankles and neck and broke apart his intricate tattoos. The delicate new skin coated the _entire length_ of his tail. That it had been restored at all was a testament to the skills of the healer and the coin the party had mustered. The chips missing from Molly’s left horn were all that was left of the physical damage that would not eventually fade to some sort of normalcy. 

Caleb rested a single hand on the back of Molly’s head. He leaned in, carefully not touching any of the many places where Molly’s skin was peculiarly soft and new. His ears brushed against Molly’s ear. “Did I say to leave your underclothes on?”

“No.” Barely a word. Barely a sound. But Molly’s lips had moved. 

Caleb twisted Molly’s earlobe, just a friendly tweak. Molly whimpered and flinched from a far greater wound.

“No, Caleb.” 

Five words. Five new words in a day. And to hear his name. It made Caleb yearn for so much more in painful ways. 

This had to be right. This path. He had to believe that to continue.

“Well,” Caleb said. He leaned against the wall and crossed his arms. “Make haste.”

A full body shudder caused Molly to pull forward, clutching at his ribs. Caleb squeezed his bloody knuckles to fight the pull towards kindness. Kindness hadn’t earned him five words. 

This was compassion. He hoped Mollymauk would agree, someday. Caleb would accept the consequences if he didn’t.

Caleb waited. Didn’t chide, didn’t prod. Didn’t berate. Didn’t reprimand. Time was his tool. His torturer by proxy. And how Molly suffered.

Sobs. Tears. Rending cries. Curled on the tile floor like a child. Completely undone. Completely untouched.  

Still Caleb waited. Every minute of this bled him inside, in hidden places. His reward was two new words.

“I can’t.” 

Snot nosed, ruddy, his face a twisted caricature, Caleb’s demon thought Mollymauk might be the most beautiful and pure thing he had ever seen.

Caleb pushed off the wall. He paced around Molly’s curled body to give himself a moment to bring feeling back to his limbs. Once the pins and needles subsided Caleb dropped to one knee near Molly’s head.

“You want this to end?” Caleb said. 

A sharp jerk of Molly’s head.

“You want this to stop?”

Another painful contraction. 

Caleb leaned down so his lips were next to Molly’s right ear.

“Remove it.” Caleb pushed back to his feet and resumed his place at the wall.

Less tears this time. Less sobs. Eventually a stillness filled the bathing room. Caleb let his breathing fall into a gentle, timed rhythm, one that Molly eventually echoed. 

Trembling hands reached down to the bindings of Molly’s underclothes. He worked the simple knots for far too long before they came undone. Molly curled further on himself as he exposed little else but his bare sides. 

“Well done, mien Stutzer.” Caleb wanted to shower a thousand kisses on that bit of thigh. Bite into it and lay a deep claim over every inch of Molly’s skin, new and old. That would have been a reward for them both a week ago. Now?

He couldn’t reward him yet. 

“Get up.”

The work was not half done.


	3. Only Then am I Human, Only Then am I Clean

Twenty words, five of them curses, three of them variations of begging. None of them the sicherheitswort. 

Caleb had yet to touch Molly. Would he ever be granted that after today, in any form? 

No matter. Molly looked at him. Not through him. Not around him, not frighteningly at nothing with open eyes. Molly looked at him and met his gaze.

Caleb thought Molly might kill him.

He knelt with balled fists at his sides. Ragged breaths tore through him. 

Caleb continued to lean against the wall as he had for the last hour. An hour for a man to rise to his feet. 

Thirst nagged at Caleb but he refused to move. He would not sacrifice this progress for such a small annoyance. 

Measured breaths. Calm eyes. Neither provoking or yielding. 

Molly lurched to his feet and stood. Blood dripped from his palms as nail met flesh. The last of the trophy hunter’s work was revealed.

It had been good to burn them. Good to listen to their screams, let the skin burn without searing the lungs. It hadn’t been nearly enough to repay Molly’s pain. 

“Here,” Caleb said. He took a few steps forward and grasped the rim of the tub. It helped hide the lightness in his own head.

Molly whimpered. The restored flesh will be delicate, the healer had said, for many weeks. The body needed time to learn what was safe, what was normal. 

The water was barely tepid.  The coal had released much of its imbued energy.  

“You will wash,” Caleb said. 

“No.”

It took a great deal for Caleb to not offer a wide, beautiful smile at that ‘No.’ For one moment Molly was willful. Strong.

“Oh?” Caleb looked away from Molly and scattered a pinch of the scented salts into the water. He gently stirred the tub with his hand. “You refuse me?”

“How can you--” Molly grated his first three words together and stopped as if unsure how else to continue. 

Caleb kept his back turned. He swept the water with languid strokes. Steady, smooth. 

“You saw.” Molly said. A painful sob was strangled back with rapid pants. 

“I did.”

“The pain. I can’t bear this. It was so much easier before. Caleb. Please.”

The hand that touched Caleb’s shoulder burned against his skin, took Caleb’s breath in a shudder. He hadn’t expected this touch. 

Caleb leaned his cheek against Molly’s hand. “Living is much harder than dying, Molly. And so much more worthwhile. You taught me that.”

Molly’s hand pulled away, a slow knife across Caleb’s heart. Caleb scrubbed at his face. He was unraveling. Too soon. Not here. Not _now_. 

Caleb staggered to lean on the wall and slid down the wooden surface with a surprised exclamation.  He managed to smart his tailbone on the tile floor. 

Briefly he categorized his idiocy. In three days he had barely eaten. Not enough sleep. An hour of hard labor to fill the tub. The last of his magical focus to heat the room. Standing for two hours as muscles screamed and his throat burned. A manic giggle escaped him as the last of his demon fizzled out in the face of his exhaustion. 

He was only Caleb. The fragile, awkward wizard with too many arrow scars. Caleb. In a room with Molly.  Whom he had quietly tortured for the last few hours. 

Caleb was suddenly very glad he hadn’t eaten recently. It left less to empty out of his stomach.

Something cold and soothing pressed against his lips. Caleb grabbed the flask and sucked greedy, messy gulps. Water. Just water. That was fine. He would help Nott get something stronger later. It was warm. He was tired. The floor was warm. He could sleep here. Wasn’t the worst place they’d bedded down for a night. 

The slap brought the world into a sharper focus. 

“You gods be damned fucking asshole.” Molly’s voice shook. “You decide to pull me out of the void when you can barely stand upright. _That’s_ when you decide is the time to fuck around in my head?”

Caleb set the flask aside and looked Molly up and down. He was painful, beautiful, vibrant, and so, very, very angry. 

He spoke in a small voice, “Did it work?”


	4. Good God, Let Me Give You My Life

Molly crouched in front of Caleb and gave a wicked, wretched laugh. “You bastard,” he said in a rolling litany.  Caleb watched as Molly ran his hands over his face, rocked on his heels, whipped his tail erratically in the air. 

The world swam when Molly yanked Caleb to his feet. Molly had slept when Caleb had not. Molly had eaten the easy, soft food Caleb had given him with no complaint while Caleb had spent most of his time after meals retching. Molly had been as fully healed as was possible without traveling to the Capital. 

Mollymauk hauled Caleb around like a child’s rag doll.

The punch wasn’t so much unexpected as unavoidable. Iron rolled over Caleb’s tongue as he cradled his jaw and swayed. The second strike put him back on the floor. 

The world blurred from there; a flash of tile -- ceiling – wall. 

Some instinct compelled him to gasp before his head went under the water. It was no use. His lungs burned instantly, his breath escaped out in a rush instead of holding onto the air. His head surfaced as he felt hair tear from his scalp. 

“Yeah,” Mollymauk said. A fang dug into Caleb’s ear. “It fucking worked.”

Caleb’s head went under again. Less air, less chance to fight the urge to breath. 

Caleb coughed water, threw up again on the tile floor. Molly’s hand tangled in Caleb’s hair and shook him violently. He was defenseless, weak, confused. He knelt without an ounce of magic or fight left in him. Maybe that is why he spoke the first thought in his head.

“Always wanted to die with you.”

The world stopped spinning for a few moments. It was restful to only see the four grouted lines where tiles intersected. 

Mollymauk holding his palm, blathering about destiny in the wagon. An excuse to hold his hand in public. Caressing a finger along various bits and curves. Fate lines. Leading him here.

Caleb smiled before he passed out.


	5. The Only Heaven I’ll Be Sent To, Is When I’m Alone with You

Unconsciousness lifted its veil in small waves. There was the murmur of voices, a familiar snarl, the shutting of a door and silence.

A hand on his head, a heated debate that his mind didn’t bother to comprehend since it wasn’t in Zemnian. A warmth that rushed through his entire body and left him free of pain and dragged him further into sleep.

The third time he awoke he felt clear headed. Rested. Well. He also knew he was still dreaming.

Caleb didn’t open his eyes. This was unfair, cruel even, but he would savor it none the less. Warmth. Clean sheets that smelled of lavender. No aches or pains beyond a desire to eat half a table of good food. That would all have seemed an immeasurable wealth a few months ago.

It was nowhere as valuable as the treasure of his head on Mollymauk’s shoulder, every breath thick with Molly’s scent. The gentle weight of Molly’s tail loosely wrapped around Caleb’s leg. 

Caleb hoped he would remember this perfectly. Dreams were sometimes so fleeting. He opened his eyes. 

Molly slept. His chest rose and fell in a soft, familiar rhythm.  Daylight filtered through the curtains drawn against the window’s winter chill. Was this the same Inn? He knew it was just past midday in that intrinsic way he knew his left hand rested on Molly’s side. 

Caleb memorized everything. Every fresh inch of skin and how it met with the Molly he had always known. Every familiar curve made strange. With a held breath he edged himself onto his elbow so he could look down onto Molly’s face.

Sleep released the pain from him, made it seem as if the old Molly could wake and toss out some lascivious joke and be as willing to get a meal as a quick tumble. 

It was a lovely dream.

Caleb reached a trembling hand out and brushed against the chips in Molly’s left horn. He swallowed back a sound and gently untangled himself from Molly.

He managed to get half way off the bed before Molly spoke.

“So that’s the plan. Cut and run?”

Caleb flinched. He sat on the edge of the bed and turned back to Molly, eyes still downcast. 

Mollymauk waited. Time passed in agony as Caleb struggled to form a reply. 

“Do you truly want to look on me?” Caleb finally asked. His hands flexed in the sheets, a familiar tick.

“Should we move past the awkward beginning of this conversation and get to the part where you used our agreement to torture me for a few hours until I woke up enough to try and kill you?”

Caleb let out a bark of surprised laughter and wiped away the tears on his face. 

“I suppose we could skip a few chapters,” Caleb said. He dared to glance up.

Molly was often many things. Bombastic, Boisterous, Earnest. Caleb had no idea what to do with an inscrutable Mollymauk. 

“There are…” Molly trailed off for a moment. “There are more words to be said about this than I properly know.” 

Caleb took a breath and exhaled slowly. “The question at hand, then. Do we try to find them together?”

Molly ran a finger over one of the patches of new skin on his wrist. Flinched. Pinched it until the color came up and then soothed it. 

“I’m still Mollymauk. You’re still Caleb. We know things about each other now. Strange things.”

Caleb tried to breath. Easy breaths. Gentle rhythms. How did you breathe when any scrap of future happiness rested in a few unuttered words?

Mollymauk looked up from his wrist. “It was a misty place. Soft around the edges. A bit like being blurry drunk.  I never wanted to leave.”

Caleb put his hand near Molly. It was too much to imagine he could reach out and actually touch him. 

Molly’s hand squeezed Caleb fit to bruise. Hope sparked fitfully.

“Did I do the right thing?” Caleb whispered. A crime. A trial. Nearly an execution. Too fitting.

“I know, here and now, you believed you did. I don’t know how that balances those scales of yours.” Molly shifted and released Caleb’s hand. 

Molly’s hug was a fragile thing. Caleb felt the tension in Molly’s arms as Molly settled his chin on Caleb’s shoulder. Caleb leaned lightly into Molly’s chest in response. Tentatively put his hands on Molly’s back. 

“I missed you.” Simple words to say so much. Caleb brushed a kiss on Molly’s forehead.

Molly shuddered. Sobs wracked him as he clung to Caleb.

“You nearly died,” Molly said after he caught his breath.

“So did you, if I recall.”

“Aren’t near death experiences supposed to be enlightening? I don’t feel enlightened.” Molly let out a small hitch of a laugh. 

“False advertising. Helps ring in the rubes.”

They rested there, in a strange limbo between their future and their past. 

Caleb’s stomach grumbled. 

It was such an ordinary concern. 

There life was filled with them. Finding their clothes, splashing water on their faces. Getting looked over and approved by Jester. A lecture and a half from Beau and every other person who was in some measure concerned, confused, or upset. 

Ordinary moments are what make up most of a life that was twisted together. 

Molly was unusually quiet as they sat at a table and ate the meal provided by the inn. Caleb bit into a piece of bread even as his thoughts skittered. He might still lose Mollymauk. Had that not always been true, though? 

A warm weight wrapped around Caleb’s ankle. Molly didn’t look up from his stew. 

Enough. For today, it was enough.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you are unfamiliar with the lyrics to "Take Me To Church" go give it a listen.
> 
> If you are unfamiliar with BDSM in the real world please know that what you may read in fiction is not a useful template for the rest of our lives. There are many resources on how to safely, considerately, and carefully explore the human psyche and how power transfer affects us.
> 
> Comments are welcome.


End file.
